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Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray.

Federman, Adam (author).

Patience Gray is one of the most important food writers you’ve never heard of. Long before she published Honey from a Weed (1986), her most enduring work, Gray endured hunger in the margins of society in London, during the lean times of both world wars, and consequently, in the kitchen, her methods were simple yet beautifully tied to nature, poetry, and art. She traveled extensively, eventually making a life in the Italian countryside. Three decades were spent in rough, remote Puglia without running water, refrigeration, or other modern niceties. It was in this far-flung place that Gray would write that iconic piece of culinary history. The title was celebrated at the time, but for today’s local food fanatics, it’s venerated. Gray’s work was cookbook poetry, steeped in Mediterranean lore, with recipes hearkening back to Virgil. Even her indexes became legendary. Her life made her as much a maverick as her culinary writing. Investigative environmental- and food-journalist Federman’s biography will attract today’s farm-to-table enthusiasts, and tells a little-known story of someone who was eons ahead of her time. Andie Paloutzian